Yesterday was incredible! We were treated to a private tour of FAO – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The primary headquarters is here in Rome, and is home to the FAO David Lubin Memorial Library, archives, and digital document repository. Rachele Oriente, who is one of our GSLIS Digital Stewardship Certificate online students, works at FAO as Management Officer and Knowledge & Information Officer, and was kind enough to reach out to Professor Laura Saunders when she learned of our trip to Rome. She was so eager to show us around FAO, and to discuss the changes happening within her organization as they related to Knowledge Sharing in the world of Food and Agriculture.
We were able to meet her staff, who explained their changing and dynamic roles, not only at FAO specifically, but in the rapidly evolving world of LIS in general. We even had a chance to hear from Steve Katz, Chief of Knowledge Management and Library Services, who explained how globally, the FAO libraries have had to down-size due to budget cuts, and the interesting ways they were overcoming these unexpected hurdles. As a social servant, the FAO’s utmost priority is to provide the means of sharing knowledge about the agriculture to countries around the world, the try and eliminate extreme poverty and hunger. Without the library of course, their work would not be possible.
It was so incredible to hear from a group of ambitious LIS professionals who literally come to work every day to make the world a better place, and do this job perfectly with such limited resources! Truly, it was like meeting librarian/archivist super-heros!
After we met with the FAO staff, Rachele showed us around the David Lubin Memorial Library, took us into the stacks, and let us look at some interesting collections. At the end, she even encouraged our archives students to apply for some internship opportunities they have at FAO next summer – WOW! We met two of their current interns, MLS candidates from the University of Missouri.
It was such an amazing tour, great experience, and wonderful connection for all of our students. We are very grateful to Rachele and her staff for taking the time out of the incredible work that they do to give us a tour and some awe-inspiring knowledge. Now for some photos:
Emily & Kate get their UN Visitor Passes!
The David Lubin Memorial Library Reference Desk.
Rachele tells us about the interesting life of David Lubin, and shows us his desk and archives! There is a letter to HG Wells in there!
The stacks.
Beautiful library space for FAO employees to use.
More great library space!
Learning about collections in the stacks from field offices across the world.
Rachele being a great host!